The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Roberts Rinehart - 25 Titles in One Edition. Mary Roberts Rinehart
she thought, because with gardeners coming who aren't gardeners—and Lizzie hearing yells in the grounds and——"
She started slightly. The front door bell was ringing—a long trill, uncannily loud in the quiet house. She sat rigid in her chair, waiting. Billy came in.
"Front door key, please?" he asked urbanely. She gave him the key.
"Find out who it is before you unlock the door," she said. He nodded. She heard him at the door, then a murmur of voices—Dale's voice and another's—"Won't you come in for a few minutes? Oh, thank you." She relaxed.
The door opened; it was Dale. "How lovely she looks in that evening wrap!" thought Miss Cornelia. But how tired, too. I wish I knew what was worrying her.
She smiled. "Aren't you back early, Dale?"
Dale threw off her wrap and stood for a moment patting back into its smooth, smart bob, hair ruffled by the wind.
"I was tired," she said, sinking into a chair.
"Not worried about anything?" Miss Cornelia's eyes were sharp.
"No," said Dale without conviction, "but I've come here to be company for you and I don't want to run away all the time." She picked up the evening paper and looked at it without apparently seeing it. Miss Cornelia heard voices in the hall—a man's voice—affable—"How have you been, Billy?"—Billy's voice in answer, "Very well, sir."
"Who's out there, Dale?" she queried.
Dale looked up from the paper. "Doctor Wells, darling," she said in a listless voice. "He brought me over from the club; I asked him to come in for a few minutes. Billy's just taking his coat." She rose, threw the paper aside, came over and kissed Miss Cornelia suddenly and passionately—then before Miss Cornelia, a little startled, could return the kiss, went over and sat on the settee by the fireplace near the door of the billiard room.
Miss Cornelia turned to her with a thousand questions on her tongue, but before she could ask any of them, Billy was ushering in Doctor Wells.
As she shook hands with the Doctor, Miss Cornelia observed him with casual interest—wondering why such a good-looking man, in his early forties, apparently built for success, should be content with the comparative rustication of his local practice. That shrewd, rather aquiline face, with its keen gray eyes, would have found itself more at home in a wider sphere of action, she thought—there was just that touch of ruthlessness about it which makes or mars a captain in the world's affairs. She found herself murmuring the usual conventionalities of greeting.
"Oh, I'm very well, Doctor, thank you. Well, many people at the country club?"
"Not very many," he said, with a shake of his head. "This failure of the Union Bank has knocked a good many of the club members sky high."
"Just how did it happen?" Miss Cornelia was making conversation.
"Oh, the usual thing." The Doctor took out his cigarette case. "The cashier, a young chap named Bailey, looted the bank to the tune of over a million."
Dale turned sharply toward them from her seat by the fireplace.
"How do you know the cashier did it?" she said in a low voice.
The Doctor laughed. "Well—he's run away, for one thing. The bank examiners found the deficit. Bailey, the cashier, went out on an errand—and didn't come back. The method was simple enough—worthless bonds substituted for good ones—with a good bond on the top and bottom of each package, so the packages would pass a casual inspection. Probably been going on for some time."
The fingers of Dale's right hand drummed restlessly on the edge of her settee.
"Couldn't somebody else have done it?" she queried tensely.
The Doctor smiled, a trifle patronizingly.
"Of course the president of the bank had access to the vaults," he said. "But, as you know, Mr. Courtleigh Fleming, the late president, was buried last Monday."
Miss Cornelia had seen her niece's face light up oddly at the beginning of the Doctor's statement—to relapse into lassitude again at its conclusion. Bailey—Bailey—she was sure she remembered that name—on Dale's lips.
"Dale, dear, did you know this young Bailey?" she asked point-blank.
The girl had started to light a cigarette. The flame wavered in her fingers, the match went out.
"Yes—slightly," she said. She bent to strike another match, averting her face. Miss Cornelia did not press her.
"What with bank robberies and communism and the income tax," she said, turning the subject, "the only way to keep your money these days is to spend it."
"Or not to have any—like myself!" the Doctor agreed.
"It seems strange," Miss Cornelia went on, "living in Courtleigh Fleming's house. A month ago I'd never even heard of Mr. Fleming—though I suppose I should have—and now—why, I'm as interested in the failure of his bank as if I were a depositor!"
The Doctor regarded the end of his cigarette.
"As a matter of fact," he said pleasantly, "Dick Fleming had no right to rent you the property before the estate was settled. He must have done it the moment he received my telegram announcing his uncle's death."
"Were you with him when he died?"
"Yes—in Colorado. He had angina pectoris and took me with him for that reason. But with care he might have lived a considerable time. The trouble was that he wouldn't use ordinary care. He ate and drank more than he should, and so—"
"I suppose," pursued Miss Cornelia, watching Dale out of the corner of her eye, "that there is no suspicion that Courtleigh Fleming robbed his own bank?"
"Well, if he did," said the Doctor amicably, "I can testify that he didn't have the loot with him." His tone grew more serious. "No! He had his faults—but not that."
Miss Cornelia made up her mind. She had resolved before not to summon the Doctor for aid in her difficulties, but now that chance had brought him here the opportunity seemed too good a one to let slip.
"Doctor," she said, "I think I ought to tell you something. Last night and the night before, attempts were made to enter this house. Once an intruder actually got in and was frightened away by Lizzie at the top of that staircase." She indicated the alcove stairs. "And twice I have received anonymous communications threatening my life if I did not leave the house and go back to the city."
Dale rose from her settee, startled.
"I didn't know that, Auntie! How dreadful!" she gasped.
Instantly Miss Cornelia regretted her impulse of confidence. She tried to pass the matter off with tart humor.
"Don't tell Lizzie," she said. "She'd yell like a siren. It's the only thing she does like a siren, but she does it superbly!"
For a moment it seemed as if Miss Cornelia had succeeded. The Doctor smiled; Dale sat down again, her expression altering from one of anxiety to one of amusement. Miss Cornelia opened her lips to dilate further upon Lizzie's eccentricities.
But just then there was a splintering crash of glass from one of the French windows behind her!
Chapter Six.
Detective Anderson Takes Charge
"What's that?"
"Somebody smashed a windowpane!"
"And threw in a stone!"
"Wait a minute, I'll—" The Doctor, all alert at once, ran into the alcove and jerked at the terrace door.
"It's bolted at the top, too," called Miss Cornelia. He nodded, without wasting words on a reply, unbolted the door and dashed